


It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Learns How to Knit

by WeekendWriter



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Cult Holidays, Holiday Fic Exchange, John Seed's Botched Attempt at Knitting, M/M, Ugly Holiday Sweaters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 09:30:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17139293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeekendWriter/pseuds/WeekendWriter
Summary: Slowly, the gears turned until finally, the mess of yarn all but slapped him in the face. “You made this.”“Yes.” It was the first time Rook had ever heard the self-proclaimed Yes Man hesitate over his favorite word.“You… made me a sweater.”Or, in which it takes one horribly knitted Christmas sweater for Rook to realize the extent of his feelings for John Seed.





	It's All Fun and Games Until Someone Learns How to Knit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nolongerheregoodbye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nolongerheregoodbye/gifts).



> Hope you enjoy this gift, friend!! Happy holidays to you and yours, and thank you for such a great prompt!

It was…

Hideous. 

Rook barely squashed the urge to bury his face in the mound of yarn in front of him because that was probably all the thing was good for. There was absolutely no way that he could fit even half of one of his arms into what he supposed was the left sleeve. A mostly complete pattern of _something_ was splashed across the front but Rook couldn’t even make out the design up this close. 

A pause had stretched entirely too long between them and Rook finally tore his gaze up to meet John’s expectant eyes. Which were now tinged with a shade of concern.

“I…wow.” Rook nearly cringed at the word his brain finally landed on. _Come on, brain, do better_. “John, this is great.” 

John’s eyes lit up immediately. Rook was grateful (not for the first time) that the youngest Seed responded to praise so readily. Anyone else would have probably seen through his half-assed gratitude and mistook it for something else rather than the genuine surprise Rook felt. 

The gratitude wasn’t really half-assed. John had seemed genuinely excited to hand him whatever it was that was currently engulfing his lap and that had been too endearing. Of all people, Rook had expected John to be the least excited about the holidays. Rook himself knew all about disappointing parents and botched holidays from his own family experiences, but knowing John’s splintered past? The foster care system was notorious for allowing kids the bare minimum to survive, much less extra treats for occasions such as the holidays. And he had skimmed through enough of the Book of Joseph to get a sense of John’s past since the man himself barely talked in honest detail about things before Hope County. Rook couldn’t imagine the Seeds or the Duncans as heartwarming Hallmark families to spend Christmas with. 

And yet here John was, offering him a Christmas gift wrapped in elegant paper complete with a gold-flecked bow. 

A gift swap was the last thing Rook had in mind when John invited him over to the Ranch as the evening sun began to set. They really shouldn’t have kept carrying on like this, but it was far too easy to keep falling into John’s bed when it was one of the few no-strings-attached transactions that happened in this damned place. Rook had been quick to learn one thing about the residents of Hope County: everybody needed something, and everyone had an agenda behind them. Sure, it seemed like everybody in this world was out for themselves nowadays but having the whole ‘do this because you’re either picking sides for or against a fucking cult’ and ‘oh by the way whatever I’m asking you to do involves killing at a minimum three people’ pressure from the Resistance really made a lot of interactions feel forced. People only ever wanted him when they needed something done. And while Rook learned fast that building up a stock of allies who would fight for him as fiercely as he fought for them was the only way to stay alive, the social interactions really bummed him out when he thought about the fact that they probably wouldn’t happen if he wasn’t a useful tool in the midst of a warfront. 

That was why this new whatever this was with John had come as such a shock to Rook. After the whole ‘yes’ schpeal and the bunker debacle, Rook had expected the invitation from John to be a cover for the herald to try to convert him yet again. Actually, Rook had first thought the come-on through the radio was a joke and he spent more than his fair share of time apologizing to John in order to actually get him into bed. But still, the nights had been lonely and as more time passed, Rook had found himself missing close human contact. He’d dived headfirst into sex with John fully expecting it to be used as a ploy to convert him and emerged with the only honest-to-God strings-free interaction he’d experienced in the county thus far. 

Part of it, of course, was the need for discretion. Rook doubted John wanted Joseph knowing about his extracurricular activities when they went against everything the cult supposedly stood for. And Rook himself sure as hell didn’t want Jacob tracking him down and putting a bullet through his skull for ‘defiling his baby brother’ or some shit. Jacob was downright scary as it was, but with big brother mode activated? Rook wasn’t keen on finding out what that was like.

And the other part? Rook thought that John needed the escape from reality as much as he did. So they didn’t push things, left it at casual sex with nobody staying after the fact, and didn’t talk about it. Feelings weren’t involved, couldn’t be involved, as far as they both were concerned. But like clockwork, Rook could feel the magnetic attraction pulling them to dance around the conversation that always inevitably happened.

Rook was glad to have received the gift. He really was. With the two of them prowling closer and closer toward something substantial, it was adorable to see John make an effort. It just really wasn’t what he would have expected from the most dramatic Seed. He would have expected maybe an obnoxiously expensive gold watch or a replacement car for all the ones John’s cronies had blasted off of the map just because he happened to drive down a road in the valley. This just... didn’t seem like John’s style. 

“I, uh, didn’t get you anything,” Rook finally worked out. “I wasn’t expecting gifts.” 

“No, no, of course not.” John was quick to jump to his defense and even looked _contrite_ , which was a look Rook hadn’t thought him capable of. “I wanted to do something, and this came to mind. Gifts from the heart and all that.”

From the heart. If that wasn’t a confession Rook wasn’t sure what else would be. Slowly, the gears turned until finally, the mess of yarn all but slapped him in the face. “You made this.”

“Yes.” It was the first time Rook had ever heard the self-proclaimed Yes Man hesitate over his favorite word. 

“You… made me a sweater.”

John snorted; Rook could see him already folding in on himself at Rook’s reaction and at the state of the gift itself. “To say I ‘attempted’ to make a sweater would be generous.”

It wasn’t Rook’s fault that his brain couldn’t catch up fast enough to squash John’s sudden apprehension at the gesture; John fucking Seed had knitted him a sweater. It was lumpy and uneven and Rook wasn’t even sure that he could fit his ginormous head through the head hole but it was handmade. By someone who, by his own accounts, knew only how to destroy, not create. 

But he’d tried. He had tried it for Rook. 

Who couldn’t even remember the last time someone took time out of their schedule to make something for him by hand. Sure, he’d received his fair share of gifts from people over the holidays and for his birthday, but they were always store-bought or last-minute gifts with no more thought put into them than for the societal obligation of these times of year. This, though? The amount of time John must have put into making this meant that he’d resigned himself to making it way before the holiday season decided to slingshot around the corner. John had been planning this for a while. 

Probably started it back when they’d first started seeing each other, back when both of them had hopes that this, like everything else in Hope County, would be a passing motion never to be spoken of again.

That, of course, was the last neon sign Rook needed. This, whatever this was between them, meant far more to John than even the man himself probably realized. 

As John opened his mouth to make some apology about how he could take the thing back, Rook surged forward and crashed his lips against John’s. It was messy, hasty, far less thought out than this sweater clearly was, but it was perfect for them. Rook could practically feel the tension bleed from John’s lean frame as he leaned into the kiss. He wasn’t great at words, but Rook hoped he could put enough feeling into the gesture to reassure John that yes, somehow, _by God_ , Rook was just as stupidly into John as the Baptist was into him. 

“Hmm.” John leaned back. His eyes opened languidly as though he’d been dosed with a handful of bliss. “If that’s what a sweater gets me, I may have to try for a blanket next.”

Rook rolled his eyes but pressed another kiss to the corner of John’s mouth. “You don’t have to do anything to get this from me.”

“I know.” The other man hesitated for a moment before he pressed on. “But I want to.”

And that was more of a revelation than either of them had expected. Rook tightened his grip around the sweater protectively, mirroring his grip on John’s bicep. Yeah, there wasn’t a chance in hell he was going to let either of these things go. As damaged as the two both appeared on the outside, there was something absolutely beautiful in the meaning of both.

 

 

 

Rook weaved between the throng of people occupying the banquet hall and made his way over to the buffet table to spoon another generous dose of punch into his glass. Green and red food-safe glitter sparkled back at him as though winking and laughing at his expense. Rook ignored the sound of the band in the corner as they took up their instruments for another thrilling rendition of the latest holiday-version cult hit. He was long past the point of wishing that his cup had something much stronger in it when someone bumped into his back. 

Jacob Seed looked him over once, the corners of his smart mouth turning up as though he’d just finished opening the best Christmas present of the century. “Deputy.” Then, with a rumble that sounded like the closest the mountain of a man ever got to a genuine laugh, he added, “Nice sweater.”

With a sigh, Rook dragged his gaze away from the instigating and instead met John’s eyes across the crowded room. They sparkled more than the combined Christmas glitter of the room as the man caught sight of the horrendously knitted sweater that Rook was indeed wearing, and Rook’s grin felt only half forced as he muttered, “Thanks.”


End file.
